CA$ 13,454

599

Update!

May 16, 2016. Only 4 days to go on the campaign! I really need your help to spread the word on the project, you can help by sharing link to the Kickstarter and make a difference! I also wanted to thank everyone who increase their pledges with more rewards, so for now on :

For pledges of 25$CDN and more, you will now get a Steam key + your choice of console! So that's 2 keys!

For pledges of 125$CDN and more, you will now get keys for all three platforms! That's 3 Keys!

I also made the news again! CBC News is talking about me and my story, I believe people find it inspiring since I receive a lot of messages and emails from people everywhere encouraging me! It's always nice to read!

April 26, 2016. Any of the pledge rewards will give you access to your choice of platform. Once the campaign is over you will be able to tell me if you want the game for Steam, PS4 or XBox One. Read more about the update here.

In The Shadows

In The Shadows is a puzzle platformer game where you use lights to scare away and transform shadow creatures into everyday objects that you can use to your own advantage. Confront your fears, solve puzzles and find secrets!

In The Shadows is a deep emotional journey about confronting your fears, a story about a man who dives back into a childhood fantasy world to remember his past and to make sense of his life.

Gameplay :

In the game you use different sources of lights to scare away monsters. Sometimes light boxes, sometimes lamp posts. Each of these light sources will make the monsters transform into different objects. They can be a ladder, a trampoline, a door or a key... they will all help you in your adventure with their unique mechanics.

The puzzles are crafted to be challenging but they also have an added difficulty for the player who wants a bigger challenge by finding all the stars laying around in the game. Collecting all the stars will open hidden levels and secrets.

More on the story:

The player will live an emotional journey, as he goes back to the imaginary world of his childhood, where monsters crawl in the night. To fight his fears he must use lights to gain control of the monsters and use them to achieve new heights. There is a void that needs to be filled and with each memory he relives, he finds more clues.

Music :

The music for In The Shadows is composed to give the eerie mood of the world you are discovering. Peaceful instrumental music made exclusively for the game by Lombus.

I have been working by myself on In The Shadows for more than a year. It is more than halfway through development. It uses a clever techniques of relighting voxel art for the environment to give a rich and colorful mood to the game with real time lighting. This create beautiful interactive shadows over the pixel art. The environments graphics of In The Shadows were made possible by using Qubicle professional voxel editor.

Kickstarter :

The purpose of this Kickstarter is to help me finish this game as I imagine it. The funds will be used to pay for the music, equipment, software licences and everything else related to the development of the game. It will free me to work on the game full time until the release.

The game is well on its way and in heavy development. It is scheduled to be released around the end of this year. All the heavy core development has already happened, and I am now working on making interesting levels and puzzles.

About me:

My path is a strange one. I studied programming for some time and dropped out to learn 3D animation for movies and visual effects. I worked in the 3D animation industry for more than a decade doing everything imaginable in production. Eventually, I specialized in making tools for workflow and pipeline as a Technical Director. Although I always loved programming, I always thought about making a game by myself, imagining a story and puzzles based around lights and shadows mechanics. The task seemed impossible at first, but with time I started learning more about game development and I've been playing around game engines ever since.

I realized I could make this game on my own, make a complete project with a story that touched me deeply.

More info on the project:

Pledges breakdown :

Earlybird! Limited quantity. Get a digital copy of the game when it is released. The game will first be available on Windows and later on Mac and Linux.

13$CDN (~10$USD) Digital Copy!

Get a digital copy of the game when it is released. The game will first be available on Windows and later on Mac and Linux.

18$CDN (~14$USD) Credits!

Get a digital copy of the game when it is released. The game will first be available on Windows and later on Mac and Linux. You will also have your name in the credits of the game.

25$CDN (~20$USD) Soundtrack!

Get a digital copy of the game when it is released. The game will first be available on Windows and later on Mac and Linux. You will also have your name in the credits of the game and a downloadable soundtrack made by Lombus.

35$CDN (~28$USD) Beta Tester!

Get the game when it is released on Steam. The game will first be available on Windows and later on Mac and Linux. You will also have your name in the credits of the game and a downloadable soundtrack made by Lombus.

+ Be a beta tester, get the beta version of the game a month before release. You will have access to the beta tester forum and you can help me during the last phase of the development!

125$CDN (~100$USD) Pixel art frame!

You will get all of the above + a personalized frame I will create in pixel art that will be included in a hidden room made for the Kickstarter.

The frame I will create in pixel art, based on an image provided by you. The image must be in good taste for obvious reasons. If you want you can also give me a general reference of what you want me to draw. I will show you the frame before the final release.

250$CDN (~200$USD) Major Contributor!

You will get all of the above + Your name will be in the credit as a major contributor to the game.

Whatever pledge you choose, I want to thank you for backing!

Risks and challenges

The game has been in development for a long time now. The hardest parts are behind me. I am now working really hard to make interesting levels, puzzles and balancing out the difficulty to make it an interesting game.

Making video games by yourself is very difficult, but I have been working on In The Shadows for quite some time now and it's a very personal project that I am giving everything I have to finish. Sometime things take more time than planned, which is very common in a self financed indie project, but the game should be on track since the major core development has already happened.